I, Battlecast
by mi ramfan
Summary: Five years ago, Rumble walked into a junkyard an ordinary Yordle. He left it as the Mechanized Menace, piloting a mech made of junk and stolen hextech parts. What would he do if he had the chance to do it all over again-and do it right? (NaNoWriMo attempt, rated M for coarse language and mechanized violence. Will update frequently.)
1. Military Grade

**Summoner's Rift **

**December 2, 18 CLE (Common League Era)**

Rumble frantically piloted his mech, Tristy through the southwestern jungle. Quickly glancing into the rearview mirrors, he ducked into a clump of bush near the massive ancient golem that was pounding its chest, demanding a challenger.

"Power down the steam," he muttered, "Cover over the harpoons, and switch off the pilot light on the Flamespitter…"

A moment later, the shadow ninja Zed walked through the jungle where Rumble had just been. Without the lights and whistles of Tristy active, the ninja paid the large hunk of hexsteel crouched in the brush no mind, even as he hunted for Rumble so he could finish slicing and dicing Tristy and then her blue-furred driver.

As Zed turned his back to the brush, Rumble hammered on five buttons in the cockpit. Tristy's systems revved up to full power again, and Rumble slammed the sticks forwards, pulling the trigger on the right joystick as he did. Flames roared from the end of Tristy's right arm, engulfing the shadow ninja in flames. The summoning magic briefly redirected the flames around Zed, protecting him, before the superheated mix of kerosene and nitrous oxide overwhelmed the summoner's power, lighting the ninja aflame. He screamed and thrashed briefly before collapsing to the ground, dead.

Rumble roared his triumph as he climbed down the front of Tristy. He winced a little as he landed on his ground, his left knee still giving him pain after all these years. But it was nothing compared to the bounty bag he collected from the ninja's corpse. Four hundred gold.

All of which would do him no good if he was killed by the enemy Kha'Zix or Maokai on the way out of the jungle. He would just have to call for a recall from his summoner, and hope that nobody decided to give chase.

_Can you get me back to base? _Rumble asked his summoner.

_I can try_, a nervous Yordle voice spoke in his mind, _but Ahri just spotted someone heading your way from mid lane, and Maokai's bound to be in the area._

_Just do it, okay?_

Blue circles surrounded Tristy as the yordle summoner channeled his spell. Rumble climbed back up the stepladder on Tristy's front until he was high enough to hop into his seat. He powered down Tristy's systems once more as the summoning spell continued, hoping to evade detection in the brush.

But as the blue light grew brighter, Rumble spotted a figure approaching in the rearview mirror. It was an unrecognizable silouette that Rumble instantly decided was Kha'zix, since it had several limbs in the wrong place for a human and claws that he was fairly sure Maokai didn't have.

_I see the Void thing behind me. Cancel the spell. I have an idea._

_But Rumble, my summoning magic won't protect you from many more attacks. You should return to base before you're killed-_

_Sometimes I have to do everything myself…_ Rumble muttered as he powered Tristy back up. Then, he eased the joysticks forwards, walking directly in front of Kha'Zix while facing away from him. Playing dumb tricked a lot of humans, but he didn't know if it would be good enough for the Void creature. That was alright. He was a risk taker, and lacked the fear of death given how close he had come after the fight, and the surgeries, and the-_Focus. Have to time this perfectly or-_

Kha'zix snarled and leaped at Tristy from behind, claws bared and swung above his head. And still Rumble kept walking away, watching Kha'Zix's feeble wings bring him directly above Tristy before he plummeted downwards onto Rumble's cockpit. At the last second, Rumble reached above and slammed the cockpit cover shut, while slamming the foot pedals to give an extra burst of speed to Tristy. Instead of landing in the cockpit with Rumble, the Voidling landed on the back of Tristy, and reached out a claw to pull itself over the mech's shoulders.

Rumble slammed his blue fist onto the red button in the center of the dashboard.

The three rockets on Tristy's back fired, slamming into Kha'zix's belly and carrying him hundreds of feet into the air before finally detonating with a massive "BOOM"!

_That was...impressive._

_He never saw it coming. Rumble grinned at his summoner's praise. Now get me out of here._

_On it._

Rumble sat and waited as the blue circles once again formed around Tristy. He considered opening the cockpit cover to cool down, since Tristy always ran dangerously hot at the best of times, but decided against it. Wouldn't do to have one of Maokai's killer saplings land in the cockpit and blow him to high hell.

Then Rumble realized he had more to worry about then Maokai.

_Hey, did you magically collect the gold?_

_What?_

_There's none falling. You'd think the bounty bag would have burst open when I took care of him with the Equalizer._

_Then that must mean he_-Kha'six's furious face appeared meters away from Tristy, wings extended in a glide-_didn't go down_!

The Voidling smashed into Tristy at full speed, sending the mech crashing to the ground with the praying mantis sitting atop its chest. Groaning from the impact, and out of reach of the controls, Rumble yelled, "Tristy, fire Electro Harpoons!" Instead of burying itself in Void flesh, the harpoon was snagged from the air by Kha'zix, who promptly slammed it into the cockpit cover, shattering the glass.

Before he could be ripped from his mechanized shell like a Brackern from its gems, Rumble pulled two handles at the top of the cockpit. His whole seat ejected from Tristy, launching him several yards until the seat smashed back first into a tree, automatically unbuckling the seatbelt as it went.

Rumble stood, drawing his wrench from his mechanic's belt. He could never last long in Tristy-less combat, but maybe I could last long enough for Ahri or ShyvanaGGHHHH

A cluster of spikes sliced into the protective barrier of the summoning magic, then through his jacket, and then deep into his flesh. Rumble coughed and fell to his knees, blood spattering the ground in front of him, before Kha'zix leaped upon him once more, tearing out his throat.

Rumble's eyes popped open back in the northeastern fountain. He was once again seated inside Tristy, with all of the various broken parts from the last fight reloaded. But just as he pushed the joysticks forwards again, his summoner spoke in his head.

_Rumble, we're gonna surrender this game._

_What the hell? I'm destroying these guys,_ Rumble thought, closing his eyes. _Just give me five minutes and-_

_It's only a practice match, and we got all the practice we wanted. Besides, someone from the Department of War wants to see you._

_Tell them I'm not around. Technically, you wouldn't be lying._

"They want to see you now. "

_Well, I don't want to see them ever._

"Rumble? RUMBLE!"

Rumble's eyes popped open; he had been in the summoning room at the Institute of War, still thinking his thoughts to his summoner as if he was on the fields. "I don't want to talk to them," he said as he hopped out of Tristy, who would be summoned back to his workshop separately.

Rumble's summoner, a feisty yordle named Kernel, fell into step beside him in the hallway. "They have money."

"I have money, Kernel! You know what the Institute of War pays for matches?"

"They have more money. And they want to see you."

"I don't want to see them."

Two yordles in suits and sunglasses stepped from a room on the right side of the hallway. "Mr. Rumble, the War Department would like to see you."

"Tell them to use binoculars." Rumble brushed off the two guards and strode into the mess hall. On the far side, near the stairs, stood a counter where a League healer handed out specialty medicine to champions, so long as they had a prescription. Rumble groaned as he saw the line of three lightly clothed female champions, the first of which was arguing with the healer on duty. "Damn, my knee hurts right now…"

"If you want to get some of that potion, I'll wait with you," Kernel offered.

"No, I'll manage." The pair climbed the stairs to Rumble's workshop, which was on the far northeastern side of the building on the third floor. The fourth floor was reserved for summoners, the third for places for champions to practice their trades, the second for the mess hall, practice arena, and champion dorms, the first for visitors and guests, and everything below that filled with dungeons where the League kept some of its more...unpleasant...champions.

"So, why are you following me back to the workshop that I don't let anybody else in?"

"Because, you see, the thing is-"

"I have the floor in front of my laboratory rigged with countermeasures. The door is revolving and admits only me, and blows up anybody who isn't me or somebody I buzz in. And I'm not buzzing you in."

"Rumble, here's a thing about that-" Kernal said as Rumble reached a blank wall and stopped. "Rumble, you're staring at a stone wall. RUMBLE?"

Rumble gripped Kernal's head, then bashed it against the second brick down from the fourth lantern. A retinal scanner extended from the wall; Rumble glared into it, then placed his hand on the wall mounting of the fifth lantern and pushed down. The wall slid back, revealing a revolving door that lead to Rumble's laboratory. "Home, sweet home," he muttered as he walked in.

Immediately, two yordles, a red-furred male in a Megling uniform and a albino female in a government robe turned around in swivel chairs they had no doubt grabbed from Rumble's office in the far left corner.

"We'd like to see you," they said in unison.

"How the hell did you get in here?"

"We held a picture of your face in front of the retinal scanner, then pulled down on the fifth lantern," the female said.

Rumble sighed; he KNEW he should have gone with the DNA scanners. "What do you want?"

"The Department of War has a proposition for you, Rumble," the Megling general said. "We've seen what you can do with parts from a junkyard. Imagine what you could do with War Department funding." The albino female handed Rumble a briefcase. It was surprisingly heavy in Rumble's hands.

Rumble walked to his worktable and opened the briefcase. It was filled to the brim with gold coins.

"What's the catch?" Rumble asked, not turning back towards the pair of War Department officials.

"What do you mean?" the female asked.

"There's always a catch. Especially with these," he said, waving a gold coin in the air. "What do you think you're buying with all this money? The League pays enough-I don't need or want any more."

"That's your payment for not throwing us out the door," said the female.

"You can get out now."

"Hear us out, Rumble," the general said. "We'd like to give you a grant to make a whole new mech. We'll pay for whatever materials you need, the testing, whatever. You could even hire an assistant with all the gold we're offering you, so you don't have to worry about maintenance on the current model while you work on the new one."

"We're also not going to limit you in terms of specs. The only limitation is that whatever you make for yourself has to still be able to function on the Fields of Justice. After that, you can do whatever you want with it." The woman twirled a coin in between her fingers. "Rumble, you're the best engineering mind on Runeterra. We want to give you the resources you need to truly shine, with real parts instead of junk."

Rumble frowned. These two were good. "What's the catch? There's always a catch."

"Once you're done, we'd like to have copies of your design so that we can begin manufacturing it for the Meglings. Unfortunately, due to matters of national security, I can't tell you more."

Why not? Rumble thought. "Okay, I'm in. When do you want it done?"

"Oh, take your time," the general said. "We'll need a few months to create a Megling armored division anyways-we can train them without the mechs."

"Fine," Rumble grunted, turning back to his table and the briefcase of gold coins that laid on top. "Now get out of my workshop. Make sure you don't set off the land mines on your way out."

_A/N: Hey, guys. I heard about NaNoWriMo and decided to write a fic for it, and this was what I ended up on. I don't have much faith that I'll make 50,000 words by the end of the month, but we'll see how things go!_

_I plan to update this story every other day if I can, but some updates will be slowed down depending on how much work I have. In the meantime, keep checking back for new updates!_


	2. Involved

_"So what are you going to do with all that money from the War Department, Rumble?"_

_"Who the hell knows? I live at the Institute, and with all the maintenance and matches I have to do I never have time for leisure. Probably just put it in the bank or something."_

_"I'd consider hiring an assistant so you actually have time to work on the robot."_

_"Might not be such a bad idea."_

**Rumble's Apartment**

**December 7, 18 CLE**

That was what had left him sitting around in his apartment, sending hopeful after hopeful packing when they failed to meet up to his standards or mentioned Heimerdinger. Rumble secretly wondered if anyone was good enough for his exacting standards; this whole exercise could turn out to be a waste of time.

Number thirty left, and thirty one came in. A green-skinned female yordle named Flora, with piercing hazel eyes and white hair. Rumble briefly perused her resume, noting her summa cum laude graduation from the Engineering Academy in Bandle City as well as her current lack of employment. That suggested some sort of personal problem that wouldn't appear on a resume.

Rumble strode into the room, seeing a stressed but determined look on his applicant's green, shapely face. "Your parents ever tell you to never meet your heroes? It's too goddamn late for that." The female cracked a grin, revealing pristine white teeth. "So, what's going on for you? How was your trip to the Institute?"

"They summoned us here. It was definitely a short trip."

"Ahh, I see." Rumble looked up. "I don't want to keep you too long, so I'll only ask you a few questions. I'm only taking one person, and I've seen thirty other people before you, so I'll know pretty quickly if I'm interested or not."

"Alright."

"So, I guess I'll start by asking you: why do you want this job? There'll be a lot of work, long hours, and to be honest, you only get paid if I'm getting paid. What makes you want to work for me?"

"Well, sir, I-"

"Call me Rumble. Everyone else does."

"Well, Rumble, my thesis advisor wanted me to stay in college and go for a doctorate, but I think that's stupid. It's not as if I'd be getting any experience other than sitting in a classroom; I'd rather get out and DO something. Working for you is my best chance to do that."

Rumble scratched his chin idly. "That's a good answer. Your resume said you got good grades too-summa cum laude. What do you think it's gonna be like for you to do some real life engineering?"

"For me engineering is about problem solving. The difference is, here the jigsaw pieces are real, and the stakes are a lot higher then they were in school. So it'll be a lot more work, and obviously it'll take some time for me to get used to it, but I'm definitely prepared for this job."

"We'll see, won't we?" Rumble was impressed by Flora's answers, but he wanted to see what the fresh-faced college graduate could do in a short period of time. "Have you ever watched a League match?"

"I watched a few exhibitions with my friends on BlitzNET. I was mostly a Ziggs and Tristana fan, though; for me your engineering side was more interesting than the champion side."

"That's not what it was about." Rumble flipped over Flora's resume, sliding the parchment over to Flora blank side up before handing her a pen. "Let's say for a minute that I wanted to make some changes to my mech. See, that wrecking ball on my mech's left arm doesn't really pack the punch it needs to on the Fields. Show me what you'd do to it to give it a little more 'oomph'."

"Do you have anything in mind?"

"Oh, surprise me." Rumble left Flora in her armchair, scribbling away, before he walked over to the other room of the apartment. Inside, on the edge of the bed, sat Kernel, who had been listening to the interview from the next room. Closing the door, Rumble asked, "What do you think?"

"She's good. Real good. Great grades, no skeletons in the closet, a fresh young mind, and best of all, she's got small fingers. So instead of taking Tristy's whole front apart for a minor repair, she can just peel off a plate, stick her hands in, and get to work."

"I'm a little worried that there's something up with her," Rumble whispered, not wanting his voice to carry to the next room. "Grades like hers, paid her own way through college, and nobody wants to hire her straight out of senior year? Something's fishy there."

"Honestly? She's probably alright. Maybe the firms just weren't hiring."

"We'll see." Rumble opened the door again. "What you got for me? Let's see…" Rumble frowned. "These are feet. I asked for an upgrade to the-"

"Wrecking ball's just fine, Rumble. Thing is, not much we can do to it that won't throw your mech even more off balance and top heavy then it already is, and even if we did change it it would be equally effective against turrets and champions alike, since more power isn't gonna make you punch through that summoning magic any quicker. So I did an idea I had for the feet instead."

Rumble sat down, interested. Flora continued, rapidly sketching as she went. "See, your robot's so top heavy, it's pretty easy to take down. I know one time late my junior year me and my pals were watching Bandle City vs. Ionia in the Snowdown tournament and that blind Ionian monk just took you DOWN. Kicked the legs right out from under that thing. Problem is, adding more weight to the legs just makes them take more energy to move, which requires a larger power source, which makes your robot even more top heavy." She crossed out the sketch with a few quick slashes of the pen. "What you really want to do is make some modifications to the feet. First, you'll want crampons-these will allow your bot to dig into the ground better and give you better acceleration so you don't get caught by Ionian monks in the first place. Then, use a solenoid system to automatically activate them when one foot is removed from the ground. This'll make it so that even if that Lee Sin guy kicks out a leg, or Vayne uses that massive crossbow of hers, your other leg will hold on its own until you can recover the other leg."

Rumble scratched his chin again, saying nothing. Flora scrunched her brow, then began to fold up her resume. "I'll just go now, Rumble. Thanks for your time."

She was almost to the door when Rumble said, "Sit down. We're not done yet."

Flora returned to her seat, hands folded but jittering with worry. Rumble said, "Flora, I want you to work for me. But before I get you set up with a room here and tell you what's going on, I want to ask you one more question. You see, you graduated from the Engineering Academy with great grades. You paid your own way through everything after sophomore year, and you're clearly very skilled at doing concepts quickly. But you'd think that someone of your caliber would have been hired straight out of college, and that made me suspicious."

"I only applied to one place. JayceTech in Piltover." Rumble nodded; it was one of the top draws for techmaturgists from the Yordle Academy. "But I got rejected. You see, my junior year, I was with this guy who was a senior, and JayceTech ended up hiring him. Well, I send in my application, and it turns out this guy was one of the hiring managers. They rejected me because of a 'conflict of interest', or something. I was just about to move back in with my parents and look for another job when I heard about this."

Rumble thought about it. "Hm. Well, the job's yours, if you want it. I want to warn you about something though. We're gonna have long hours; sometimes 18 hour days if I had a match. Since you're leeching off my League salary, pay's not great. You get as much vacation time as I get, which is pretty much none. And you have to deal with my competitors, who are going to be dying to pump you for info on why I hired you or what you're doing for me. Hell, competitors won't even be that bad when you see the press. So, knowing all that, you still want to work for me?"

Flora hesitated. Rumble groaned. "What turned you off, the vacation time?"

"I'm in." Flora grinned. "When do we start?"

"Tomorrow's your first real day of work. Today, you're going to meet a lot of yordles you probably idolized your whole life, eat lunch with said yordles, then come upstairs with me to take a look at the workshop. And then you sleep on the couch in my apartment because it'll take a week for League staff to prepare a room for you on such short notice."

"Does the couch fold out?"

"No. You aren't in Bandle anymore, Flora." Rumble threw open the door to his bedroom, revealing Kernel bent over where the keyhole used to be. "Flora, this is my friend Kernel. He's my favorite summoner, so you'll be seeing him around the workshop sometimes. Oh, and he's taken, in case you were wondering."

"Really, he's married?"

"To my job," Kernel groaned. "Come on, let's go to lunch. Your besty Tristana will be waiting for you, Rumble. Wait till she sees your hot young new assistant. That'll put another round in her cannon!"

"Very funny, Kernel." Suddenly, an alarm began blaring in the room.

"What's going on?" Flora squeaked.

"Son of a BITCH!" Rumble yelled, scrambling for the door. "Someone broke into the workshop!"


	3. Cog in the Machine

**Second Floor-Champion Commons**

**December 7, 218 CLE**

"...so I talked to him, you know," Tristana said, sipping from a cup of Ionian cherry juice, "and he was like, 'Tristy, remember this time when we were kids back in Bandle', and brought up some thing I didn't remember at all."

"Mhm." Poppy gazed at copy of the Demacian Sentinel she had spread across the table, trying to sound interested. If there was one thing she had mastered in her work for the Bandle City consulate, it was following just enough of conversations to be able to jump in at any time without revealing that she hadn't actually been paying attention. Sounding interested was a little bit harder.

"Rumble kept coming on to me pretty hard. I mean, that's totally cool, he's a good guy and all, but he's not really my type, you know? I didn't know what to say to him that wouldn't hurt his feelings. What would you do, Poppy?" Tristana paused. "Poppy?"

The older yordle gazed across the hall at a trio of yordles charging across the hall towards the stairs. "I don't think he sees you as more then a friend. He's dragging around some cute green-skinned chick now. Just look behind you?"

Tristana looked behind her, almost giggling as Rumble shoved chairs aside in the eatery.

"We're probably too late already!" Rumble gasped as he ran up the stairs, ignoring the pain in his surgically repaired knee. "Gotta be a robotic intruder coming in through a window; my countermeasures would fry anything that was alive."

"What's the rush, Rumble?" Kernel panted from the back. "Everyone already knows about Tristy. They're not spying on you."

"Tristy? You talking about Tristana, Kernel?" Flora asked.

"It's my plans. I left them out on the table. For all I know they could have a dozen snapshots by now." Rumble skidded to a stop in front of the lantern. He quickly pounded on the brick, twisted the lantern, then gazed into a scanner in the wall. The revolving door appeared from behind the wall, and Rumble quickly guided the two followers in.

"Look around. If you find anyone who isn't supposed to be here, call me!"

The three split up around Rumble's cluttered workshop. Kernel ran into the offices, while Flora dashed over to Tristy, who was crouched and powered down on a lift. Rumble sighed and turned right towards his material racks. New girl was bound to be starstruck the first time.

Within seconds, Rumble reached an intersection. He stopped, clutching at his chest, and glanced both ways. Nothing.

That is, until a slight movement in the stacks three rows down caught his eyes. Rumble reached into his pocket, digging around for a nut, which he threw at the spherical figure attempting to conceal itself in a pile of Tristy-sized ball bearings.

The Ball took off, flying down the row, which Rumble knew ended in a window. "Flora! Kernel! Over here!" Rumble yelled, chasing after the ball.

Quickly, he realized that he wasn't going to have much luck. Rumble stopped, yanked his wrench from his belt, and chucked it at the retreating ball, knocking it to the floor. He dashed over, tackling the Ball to the ground as it rose back into the air.

"ReLEAsE mE ImMeDIAtELY." the guardian bot spoke, slamming back and forth into the shelves of materials in an attempt to shake Rumble off. Pieces of rebar and junked aluminum plating tumbled to the floor, clattering about on impact.

In desperation, Rumble yelled, "THIS SENTENCE IS FALSE!" The Ball crashed to the ground instantly, and Rumble landed flat on his back underneath it. Groaning, Rumble climbed to his feet, grabbing a screwdriver from his belt. He expertly jammed it under one of the Ball's hemisphere plates, and jimmied it around until it came loose. As he worked, he could hear pounding footsteps coming towards him.

All of a sudden, the Ball's systems began whirring back to life. Rumble threw himself on top of the Ball as it rose from the ground, repeating "UNAUTHORIZED PLATE REMOVAL. WARNING. WARNING." He could see Flora rapidly approaching from the far end of the column.

"Rumble! What should I do?" she shouted.

"Hit it with a paradox attack!"

"A paradox attack-"

"I thought you were a straight A student! Didn't you take a single class in hextech intelligence?" Rumble asked as the Ball slammed him backwards into a pile of acetylene canisters, knocking them across the floor. "Just yell a paradox at it!"

"THIS SENTENCE IS F-" The Ball slammed Rumble into the ceiling, raining dust down upon the pair.

"I USED THAT ONE! Try a different one before this thing kills me!"

"Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves contain itself?" The Ball crashed to the ground once more, and Rumble picked himself up and ran back to his work. "Flora, I need your fingers for this. I'll hold it down, you reach in there and take out the film canister."

"Alright…" Flora muttered, inserting her hands. Underneath the pair, the Ball had begun whirring and twitching again. "I think I got it…" she muttered, just as the Ball began to rise off the ground again.

"Inordertogetoutthewindowyouhavetogethalfwaytheret henhalfofthatthenhalfofthatthenhalfof-"

The Ball collapsed once more on the floor.

"Impressive. How'd you say it that fast?" Flora asked.

"I cut out the spaces. You focus on pulling out that film canister." As soon as Rumble finished, Flora grunted and yanked out a black cylinder. Rumble uncapped it and poured the long film tape onto the ground, exposing it. He replaced the plate on The Ball. "Now the film's useless. All whited out." As he spoke, the Ball rose into the air and flew out the window. "Thing will go back to Orianna soon, and then it'll short out and fall on the floor because you damaged the flight simulator while you were in there."

"Oh, that's what that was! I thought it was just some random circuitry. Besides, I kind of had a time crunch, you know…"

"Yeah, I know…" Rumble dusted himself off, then climbed to his feet. "Come on, back to the robot. I've got to show you all her components so you know what you'll be doing."

"'Her' components?" Flora asked. "Not sure if affection or just creepy…"

"Tristy is a she, Flora. Just like the traders always call their ships she. Their ships are their livelyhood; Tristy is mine."

"And Tristy. Tristy is your robot's name?"

"Every ship needs a name." Kernal chimed in from across the workshop. "You catch that thing?"

"Yeah, it was Orianna's ball taking pictures. We whited out the film. No thanks to you," Rumble jibed.

"Hey, let's be fair. I checked to make sure that the robot didn't physically pick up the plans and store it in some container. It didn't, by the way," Kernal laughed.

"Well, that's good to hear. Here, come with me, I was about to show Tristy to Flora."

"Ooh, I don't want to miss this," Kernal grinned, rubbing his hands together.

"So, Flora, this is Tristy," Rumble said, hopping up the ladder into his mech's cockpit. "She runs on a hextricity battery with a charger located in a panel between the legs. We gotta plug her in after every League match to make sure she's good to go for the next time. If the hextricity runs out mid match, there's a kerosene engine that keeps Tristy running until we can recharge her at the Nexus. With me so far?"

"Yeah, I'm with you."

"So then we have the legs. Max speed of four hundred League units a second, normal speed is three sixty. Like you pointed out in the interview, they're vulnerable to heavy impacts, so I try to keep enemy champions away from them."

"Gotcha."

"Next up is the wrecking ball. Solenoid system, enough force behind the thing to knock down your average building off the Fields of Justice. It's precisely weighted to balance out the Flamespitter on the other side, so whenever you do maintenance on it you have to tell me so I can adjust the Flamespitter the other way. The other side is the Flamespitter, which uses kerosene from the backup tank and a pilot light for ignition."

"Don't you have heat problems with the Flamespitter?"

"When I'm off the Fields, no heat problems. When I'm on the Fields, Kernal likes to channel some of his summoning magic into the Flamespitter, making the flames even hotter then they would normally be. THAT'S what causes most of my overheats. Not that I mind; I like the extra punch it gives me against the enemy summoners' magic."

"Yeah, I add a lot of punch to Tristy," Kernal cut in. "You were talking about that 400 top speed-you don't get anywhere NEAR that without me putting some extra spring in your step."

"Wait a second, this is my explanation!" Rumble jokingly complained. "Next you've got the Electro-Harpoons, in the center. Thing isn't designed to penetrate-instead, it impacts that chain-mail everyone is wearing and delivers a shock strong enough to bring down a Rakkorian. Two rounds are loaded at a time, and fired separately; they're only good for close range because of the wires."

"What about those things on the back of the robot?" Flora asked.

"Ah. Those," Rumble grinned. "Those are the icing on the cake, the final bolt in the wall, the central cog in the machine. That's what I like to call the Equalizer. A set of six Megling standard issue incendiary warheads that I 'borrowed' and retrofitted to Tristy's internal computer. Things will fly over ten thousand League units accurately, and when they land they start an intense magical fire that'll burn for five seconds in the absence of fuel. Targeting isn't as accurate as I'd like, but...what can a guy do, you know?"

"You could add stabilizing fins here and-"

"Hold on a second, Flora. Who said you were gonna be making changes to Tristy?"

Flora was crestfallen. "But didn't you say that I could make some changes like nine paragraphs ago when you were talking about the wrecking ball?"

"No, I IMPLIED you could make changes. But until you're more experienced with my...unique...craftsmanship, you don't change a bolt. You do repairs and upkeep only for your first month. After that, you can start helping me on my real project."

"What's that?" Flora asked.

"The real reason he hired you." Kernal said. "But for now, you're just a mechanic. An important cog in the machine, even if you're not the most essential. Don't worry. Your time will come."

Rumble tossed Flora a tool kit from a nearby shelf. "This is your job now. Grab lunch with me in an hour in the cafe. I'm gonna go patch myself up after that ball beat me up." Sighing to herself, Flora popped open a tool kit, grabbed a wrench, and went to work.

Rumble stiffly limped into his office and slammed the door shut. Now that he was done monologuing, the pains in his body from both the Ball's beating and his constant knee pain were screaming at him. He almost collapsed on his desk as he gasped in pain, pawing around behind a shelf in his office. At last, his left hand found a flask, which he pulled out. The flask was full of red liquid- a day's dose of Rumble's pain medication.

Without thinking twice, Rumble drained the flask. Slowly, the pain vanished from his bruised body, replaced by pure relief.

Rumble sighed, then sat down at his desk with his plans. There was work to be done.


	4. Tabloid Trash

**Institute of War-Rumble's Apartment**

**December 10, 18 CLE**

At precisely 6:00.00 AM, Rumble's alarm clock started beeping, and a button labeled with Heimerdinger's face rose.

At precisely 6:00.01 AM, Rumble's fist crushed Heimerdinger's face back into the alarm clock, silencing it. _And another wonderful day begins._

The Mechanized Menace pulled his legs from under the soft pelt of a monster he'd killed during the last year's Great Hunt, and hopped directly out of bed, his feet landing in a pair of bathroom slippers. He waddled to the dresser, grabbing a prewritten note and leaving it on the other side of his bedroom door. The note read,

_Morning, Flora. I'm taking a shower and heading to breakfast. See you in the workshop at 8._

Rumble walked into the bathroom, casually stripping and hopping into the shower, kept warm by natural hot spring water piped up from the catacombs below the institute. It took him thirty minutes to reemerge, during which he washed, shampooed, and then rinsed off every hair on his fur covered body.

This was one part of ordinary life male yordles struggled in-bathing. Unlike humans and female yordles, male yordles possessed a full-body coat of lustrous fur, making bathing sometimes more of a massive, time-sucking inconvenience than a refreshing way to start the morning. It took Rumble several minutes after he dried off to comb his longer head fur into its trademark finned shape. Fish style, like always. But am I in the water or out of it?

Finally, he dressed in one of seven identical copies of his normal outfit; grey cargo pants held up by a utility belt, his old mechanic's jacket from his years in the Meglings, and a pair of brown steel-toed boots. He opened the living room door, but there was no Flora curled up on the couch.

_Maybe she went to breakfast early_, Rumble thought, walking out the door into the Bandle City Rotunda. Here, at the center of the residential area for Yordle league personnel, was an octagonal room with five doors lining the wall for Bandle City's five champions when the wing was first constructed, and two long hallways lined with more apartments for other champions and assistants to Bandle City's various champions.

The third hallway lead towards the center of the institute, connecting straight to the dining hall, where champions and the oldest, most respected summoners were treated to breakfast ordered at the previous night's dinner while everyone else who resided at the institute made do with whatever the cooks felt like making. Rumble quickly walked to a window built into the wall of the dining hall and collected his breakfast. Across the room, Garen, Xin Zhao, and Jarvan the Fourth of Demacia had what looked like enough food to feed Kog'Maw in front of them.

"Did you have to eat that much every morning when you were the Demacian Ambassador?" Rumble asked Poppy as he slid into his seat at the table the early rising yordles usually shared for breakfast. Rumble liked to keep his breakfast light and fast-two slices of toast, a poached egg, and a glass of fresh squeezed cherry juice from Ionia. He took one slice of toast, set the poached egg on top of it, and then squeezed it into a sandwich using the other piece of toast. For Rumble, at least, breakfast was a five minute affair.

"I usually ate whatever they served me, just to be polite," Poppy replied. Despite having a reputation for a no-nonsense approach to diplomacy and League combat, Poppy was one of the more enjoyable champions to be around off the fields, thanks to the long list of memorable moments she had amassed as a Bandle City ambassador. "But sometimes I would be invited to an official breakfast with Jarvan the Third, and they'd serve up plates and plates of food, and it just got to be too much. I don't think the Demacian chefs ever realized that my stomach is half the size of a human's, and doesn't stretch nearly as far as the King's."

"What'd you do then?" Tristana asked, having no reason to rise early other then her background in the Meglings, who promptly returned any recruit rising after 7 in the morning to the regular army. "Throw up?"

"Garen was sitting on my right, but he spent all his time talking to whichever Demacian noble was there that day, so when he wasn't looking I'd shovel some of it onto his plate. He never noticed, and if he did he probably wouldn't complain." The table laughed heartily, except for Rumble, who was about halfway into his improvised breakfast sandwich. He set it down to join in a little too late, which tended to happen to him at pretty much every meal he went to.

"Oh yeah, by the way, Rumble, I thought you might be interested in this. Press finally got their hands on the news about your new assistant." Poppy reached into her bag and pulled out a copy of the newest League of Lovers tabloid, which she tossed across the table to Rumble. He glanced down at the headline.

"Mechanized Menace hires 'Assistant'-for the Workshop or the Bedroom?!" Rumble tossed the tabloid trash where it belonged. "Are you fucking kidding me?" he yelled as the table roared with laughter.

"You should read the article. I get advanced copies of anything anybody writes about Bandle City champions and I thought this one was particularly interesting," Poppy chimed in.

Rumble picked up League of Lovers again, taking one last cursory glance at the cover. "Think fast, Kernal," he said, tossing it casually towards the end of the table, where Kernal cast an Ignite spell on the newsletter that incinerated it before it hit the ground.

"Oh, come on, be fair, Rumble," Tristana said. "That chick you hired is pretty good looking. If I wasn't a girl too I'd be all over her."

"I didn't hire her for her looks," grumbled Rumble, trying to decide whether to kick Tristana under the table or wink suggestively at her above it. "Anyways, what was that thing they wrote last week? Something about Veigar, his Blasting Wand, and one megling with a really big cannon?"

"At least I have one," Tristana joked, drawing another loud round of merriment from the table.

Rumble glanced at his watch, a hardwood and hextech Megling model from before the League era. He enjoyed one or two more laughs at others' expense before he lifted his clean tray and carried it to the edge of the dining hall, where he set it down on a shelf and headed back to the yordle wing. He hadn't seen Flora in the entire twenty minutes he spent eating breakfast. Since Flora doesn't have a room yet, maybe she mooched a room off someone else who was on vacation. He was tempted to knock on every mahogany door in the long Bandle City hallway, but decided against it; better not to make a scene when he was running on War Department money.

Just as he turned around, intending to head back to the central area, Rumble heard a pair of voices emerge from a door somewhere else in the Bandle City wing. He quickly sat down, grabbing a copy of the Demacian Sentinel from a nearby coffee table. His face hidden behind a newspaper, he waited in a comfortable armchair as the voices died down.

A moment later, a familiar green-skinned yordle female in a bathrobe tiptoed across the rotunda, bare toes barely leaving imprints in the carpet. Rumble let her get halfway across the room before speaking up. "You're up early."

Flora froze, almost falling flat on her face. "Oh, I was just-just-getting one last coffee before I changed into my work clothes. Glad I'm early, I guess."

"First of all, you're late. Second of all, I got up at 6 this morning and you weren't on my couch, which as far as I know is the only place you have to sleep right now. Third of all, you've been here three days and you're already with somebody? If I wasn't so annoyed that you were late, I'd be impressed."

Flora blushed. "I'm just using his other bed, is all."

"MY room doesn't have a second bed, and I'm a CHAMPION. What makes you think anyone else here would? Come on, stop lying to me here." Rumble tossed the newspaper aside, striding over to the embarrased female. "Look, Flora, I don't give a fuck if you sleep around here. I don't give a fuck who you're involved with or how far your relationships go. I just want to set a few ground rules."

"Okay?" Flora asked.

"One. You're always on time in the morning, no matter how much you liked that guy you were with. Two. Your personal life never affects your work life. That means I'm off limits, Kernal's off limits, and anyone else I hire is off limits. Three. I get to know who you're involved with. I won't gossip to anyone, I don't need graphic details, I just need to know who you're with. Other than that, how you spend your time outside the workshop is your business and I respect that. We clear?"

"Crystal, Rumble." Flora replied. "Can I shower off, eat, and meet you in the workshop?"

"Upstairs in thirty minutes." Rumble tossed Flora the keys to his apartment. As Flora dashed off towards Rumble's room, Rumble yelled after her, "Actually, make that forty-five. Take your time."

Rumble sighed and turned around, heading back towards the dining hall. Every step was still painful ever since the Ball had slammed him into two piles of hexchrome parts, two shelving units made of Kumungu hardwood, and the stone ceiling of his workshop. He'd have to see if he could convince the summoner running the medicine counter at the Institute to give him an early refill. She'd done it before, so this time wouldn't be any different. _Right?_

"You're not even halfway through the week."

"Come on, I got slammed around by a hovering robot that was trying to wreak havoc in my workshop," Rumble explained. "Thing busted up my ribs, and then on top of all that my damn-"

"Language, Rumble," the elderly Freljordian witch doctor woman who ran the Institute's pharmacy cut it. "Unfortunately, it's policy. I can't possibly give you more medicine until the end of the week or the League will have my head."

"Alright, alright, fine…" Rumble muttered, turning away. He exaggerated the limp in his left leg, turning it into a slow, clattering hobble that drew a few concerned glances from champions at nearby tables, and at least one or two opportunistic glances from Noxian assassins.

"Come back here one second," the pharmacist shouted. Rumble hobbled back over to the desk. The Freljordian placed a smaller flask containing a familiar red liquid from it. Rumble grabbed it, but the pharmacist held on to it. "No more early refills. This will take you to the end of your week. If you screw up it's on you."

"I get it," Rumble said, taking the flask and walking away normally towards the stairs, self-satisfied as usual. Five minutes later, he was in the workshop office, sketching away on a sheet of paper. His pencil danced across the blank paper, quickly filling in wires, pipes, and heat sinks for a new Flamespitter. You could hear a pin drop if the sound of breathing didn't replace it.

"You're a mouth breather Flora," Rumble muttered, and the figure behind him jerked back. "Don't you have some repair work to be doing?"

"Your robot is fine."

"No, it's not. Here are a list of problems I had last match. Take care of them." Rumble handed Flora a full sheet of parchment listing problems.

"You are the single most nitpicky yordle I've ever met," Flora complained. "I think you've got bigger issues than Tristy's 'charging' indicator not working properly."

"Or maybe Tristy's actually not charging. Just look into all that stuff, okay? Once you've been through that whole list, come back here and I'll give you something else to do. Clear?"

"Crystal," Flora sighed, grabbing a toolbox from a shelf just outside the office and heading over to Tristy. Rumble sighed and returned to his work. His sketch of a new Flamespitter would have to wait until he could get leave to go to Bandle City; there was no way he could negotiate with the famously prickly yordle engineer who manufactured the specialized parts he needed here. He'd just have to abandon the whole thing.

Instead of tossing the plan in the overflowing trash can filled with crumpled sketches, Rumble left the office. "Flora, I'm going to talk to some League bureaucrat, be back in a bit," he yelled into the workshop before leaving. After all, Snowdown season was coming up, and along with it a casual tournament that he'd have to fight in and a ball that outsiders were allowed to attend. If he could get the manufacturer in Bandle City a ticket to the ball, he'd have no choice but to attend. Then we can make a deal.

Meanwhile in the workshop, Flora climbed up the stepladder into Tristy's cockpit and glanced at the panel of instruments before her. All of them were turned off except for the charging light, which was bright red. That meant that Tristy's battery wasn't charging.

Flora jumped out of the cockpit, doing a somersault on the way down. "And she sticks the landing…10 out of 10...except nobody cares." She turned to Tristy, examining the space in between the robot's steel legs where a metal plate on a hinge was open. A cord ran from the wall into the gap; Flora knew that inside it was attached to a hextricity battery. She reached for her flashlight, holding it in her teeth as she reached her hands inside the junkyard titan._ This is really so inconvenient_...the mechanic thought. _I could do this way better…_

Flora abandoned Tristy and grabbed a pair of gloves, a soldering iron, and an entire spool of black wire.

She was going to do it way better.


	5. Substitution

**Rumble's Workshop-Institute of War**

**December 11, 18 CLE**

"All done!" Flora exclaimed, handing Rumble back his list with everything checked off.

"Really…" Rumble muttered, scanning the parchment. Seeing nothing out of order, he nodded. "That's all for today, I guess. Stay in the workshop in case something comes up; feel free to do whatever you want as long as you don't break Tristy or kill yourself in the process."

Rumble left and took a brief walk down to the Bandle City consulate; the former Demacian ambassador Poppy had been promoted in the past few months to Bandle City's Ambassador to the League of Legends. Just as he reached the door, Poppy clattered out of it, wearing battle armor.

"I see you're all dressed up today," he said.

"I'm fighting against Piltover. Bandle City's strategist said he'd rather have me in case Piltover has any surprises. Rumor is they're going to use the new girl this match."

"Break a leg, I guess." Poppy frowned and walked off. "Hopefully one of theirs!" Rumble shouted hopefully after her.

He turned to the door. There was business to be done. Inside the mahogany-lined office, Rumble walked up to the first person he could find, who was Poppy's secretary. "I have a meeting with the War Department guy. He told me to meet him here."

"Yep, he's already here," the secretary said, pointing to the door to Poppy's office. "Must be important if you guys are gonna be using Poppy's office."

"To tell you the truth, it's the opposite." Rumble swung open the door and stepped inside. The swivel chair at the other side of Poppy's mahogany desk swung around, revealing the red furred Megling kicking back in Poppy's chair.

"Are you kidding me…" Rumble muttered, sitting down in the other chair. "They sent you when I asked the War Department for a favor?"

"The City Council assigned me to run your project, so it's my job to come here whenever you ask for a favor from the Department so I can decide whether it's something you couldn't have accomplished by spending some of the exorbitant amount of gold included in your grant."

Rumble sighed. "Well, that makes a lot of sense. Except it doesn't. Why'd they send you and not some guy from Immigration? I just want an old friend of mine added to the invite list for the Snowdown Ball, for Jax's sake!"

"Hmm. I can consider that." The Megling general left the room for a few minutes, leaving Rumble alone with his thoughts. Bored, Rumble twiddled his thumbs idly, thinking about the new motor mechanism he planned to install when he finally started to build his new mech._ It'll have to be faster then the current one; sometimes the faster humans like Master Yi or Shyvana can outrun me. But more speed means less torque, which I'll need to climb hills, stay balanced, and crush the life out of Heimerdinger's body...Perhaps I could use an entirely magically powered motor. Sure, it would be summoner reliant, but pairing up summoners with Meglings wouldn't be so hard. Then again, the League might have a problem with it._

_It's all so complicated these days. Sometimes I wish I could just go back to college. When I didn't have to worry about politics, I could just build what I wanted, finish top of the class, and make Heimy look stupider than Rammu_s. Reminiscing, Rumble drifted into a peaceful daydream.

"Rumble! Wake up."

Rumble slowly opened his eyes. It was the red-furred Megling general again. "So. You got an answer for me or what?"

"We need you to fight in the match. Now!"

"Are you FUCKING kidding me? It's a little late for that. Just yesterday you told me you wanted to use Poppy!"

"Poppy's summoner collapsed, and we can't send our ambassador out there without summoning magic to protect her. League rules allow a substitution in cases like this. How fast can you be ready?"

Rumble leaned back in his chair. "Depends-if I fight, will you get my business associate permission to attend the ball."

"Consider it done. Just go!"

"Flora! FLORA!" Rumble yelled as he ran into the workshop.

"What?" Flora asked as she reclined in a sketching chair.

"We've got a match. I need Tristy ready in 5 minutes!"

"Wait, the only match today is Bandle City versus Piltover, and you told me they wanted to mix somebody else in with the regular squad!"

"Yeah, well, Poppy's summoner had a god damn heart attack. I'm gonna have one too if we can't get this systems check done in time. Let's go!" Rumble hopped hand over hand up the ladder into Tristy. He slammed the power switch, and the roaring sound of a generator filled the room.

"Welcome, Rumble," said Tristy's onboard computer. "Currently running on auxillary power. Please recharge the battery as soon as possible."

"WHAT?!" Rumble yelled, powering Tristy back down. "You told me you fixed it!"

"I DID fix it!" Flora yelled back.

"Obviously not!" Rumble jumped down from the cockpit, sending a shock through his hexchrome knee replacement. "Flora, run to the back of the workshop. There's a closet labeled 'Backup Power Sources'. Go get me a lithium hexchrome battery ASAP! You'll need a trolley, they're as big as you are."

"Shouldn't we just try to recharge-"

"GO!" As Flora ran off, Rumble pulled out a screwdriver and lube from his belt. He sprayed down 4 bolts on Tristy's rear, and then twisted them out in a matter of seconds. A plate fell off the back of Tristy, revealing the battery. Rumble lifted himself into the crawl space, letting the screwdriver clatter to the floor. Two handles on the inside helped him crawl forwards to the battery compartment, just underneath the harpoon module.

He slid back a cover, revealing the battery and a spool's worth of wire coiled around an iron rod. "FLORA, WHAT DID YOU DO?!" he yelled. Shoving his hands into the battery compartment, he slowly removed the battery, which weighed about half what he did.

A muffled voice came from outside. "Rumble, I have the battery you asked for!"

Holding the battery out in front of him, Rumble slid slowly backwards, crawling back out of Tristy. Eventually, his legs began to hang out of the back of Tristy. "You've gotta pull me out! Battery is balancing my weight!"

Rumble felt a tug on his legs, and then he popped out of the compartment, landing flat on his back with the battery on top of him. "Damn…" he muttered, rolling out from under the spent battery. "Flora, let's go. Give me that battery."

"I'm sorry...I thought my fix would work," Flora apologized, handing Rumble the battery.

"No time for that now," Rumble grunted. "Help me lift." The two hoisted the battery above their shoulders and rolled it into the crawl space. Rumble jumped back inside Tristy, and crawled forwards about a foot, pushing the battery in front of him. He slid back the cover of the battery housing, and jammed the new battery inside. A light flashed three times, signaling that the battery was correctly fitted. Rumble closed the cover again and crawled backwards out of Tristy.

"You should really come up with a better way to switch out batteries!" Flora yelled as Rumble frantically screwed the crawl spaces' cover back on.

"That's what the charger is supposed to be for!"

A voice entered Rumble's head; he immediately recognized it as Kernal. _Is Tristy ready?_

_Give me one...damn...second…_Rumble climbed back up the front of Tristy and hopped into the cockpit, lowering the cover as he went. "Stand back, Flora. Here we go." He smashed the power button.

"Welcome, Rumble. The mech unexpectedly shut down-A FEW MOMENTS-ago. Would you like to run a system diagnostic?"

"No time," Rumble said, lowering the cockpit cover. "Switch power to Summoner level; we're going into a match."

"Affirmative." The robot jogged in place for about ten seconds, augmenting the summoning magic as Kernal channeled to grant greater power to the machinery.

_Summoning in three, two-_Rumble closed his eyes-_one, zero._

Rumble opened his eyes. Tristy was standing in the Fountain of Restoration on the southwest end of Summoners' Rift._ Kernal, battle report. What am I dropping into?_

_Just another match. We were doing pretty well until Poppy's summoner suddenly died, and they got a good push ever since then. Make sure you don't run over her in the fountain._

Rumble raised the cockpit cover, and leaned out. Below him, to his right, he could see Poppy. "Doin' fine down there?"

"I was doing better before I was in a teamfight realizing that I was actually getting hurt. Get out there and finish the job!"

Rumble closed the cover and pushed the joysticks forward. Tristy rumbled into action, steel boots crunching over cobblestone and over hard packed dirt.

_Your mind is as cluttered as your robot_. Kernal complained into Rumble's head. _I can't believe you enjoy the micromanageme_nt.

_Are you done whining about summoning me? If you don't have anything important to say get out of my head and let me concentrate_.

_Teamfight about to start in mid lane, how close are you?_

_Within Equalizer range, but I'm not quite there yet. Don't go in_. From a few hundred feet northeast, he heard the sounds of bullets and fists being deflected by summoning magic. _Are you fucking kidding me?_ "Tristy, ready the Equalizer. Target the largest mass of enemy champions."

There was a brief pause. Then, "Missiles programmed. Fire at your command." Rumble slammed his fist on a large red button in the dashboard, and Tristy shook as a whole collection of six missiles flew in an arc and exploded in the distance. The mech rapidly ate up the distance between Rumble and the teamfight until he had reached Tristana, who was firing rounds at a rapid pace into the skirmish.

Rumble pulled the trigger on his right joystick, and a wall of flame flew out of the device on Tristy's right arm. He stomped forwards into the teamfight, taking advantage of the bending power Kernal always used on the Flamespitter that split the flames around allies before reforming them into a river of burning propane. In front of him, he could see the traitor Heimerdinger laying down turrets in the middle of the lane. _Knowing Heimerdinger, they'll be heat resistant and EMP hardened with a pretty substantial fire rate. Got to take them down before they get the barrels spinning; even standard issue Megling armor won't block those for long. Filthy son of a bitch…_ Rumble fired a pair of Electro Harpoons at the turrets, shattering the cases; one round each from Tristana's cannon smashed the electronics inside.

_Well, that's that taken care of. We're kicking the asses of the four of them. Wait? The four? Where's the fifth?_

"Get dunked!" roared Piltover's enforcer as she rocketed towards Tristana. Tristana turned immediately, firing a bunker busting cannonball loaded with explosives at Vi. The shell exploded against Vi's armor, but the brunt of the explosion was borne by the summoning magic.

"Somebody peel!" Tristana cried out as Vi reached her, grabbing her in her supersized gauntlets and slamming her down flat on her back, cracking the plates in Tristana's standard issue Megling body armor. Rumble turned, throwing Tristy into high gear. Vi threw an explosive punch downwards which Tristana barely rolled away from. Drawing a pistol from her boot, Tristana fired three shots at Vi from the ground, all of which were deflected by Vi's body armor.

Rumble knocked Vi to the ground with his wrecking ball, then casually stepped on her. His mech's gears whined as they struggled to crush Vi through the barriers of summoning magic and body armor. Raising the cockpit cover, Rumble yelled, "Tristana, give me some help here!" Tristana ran over, pistol drawn, and emptied the clip downwards at Vi's snarling face until the summoning magic gave way.

"Nice one!"

"Thanks!" Behind them, Rumble heard a child's scream; Lulu had evidently been taken down by a member of the Piltover squad. He turned Tristy around to see a slight human girl carrying a rocket launcher to rival Tristana's.

"Hey, yordle bitch!" she yelled. "Say hello to my little friend!" The rocket flew towards Tristana, releasing a massive explosion on impact. When the smoke cleared, Tristana had vanished. Rumble revved up his mech and stomped in the Piltover team's direction, determined to take down the rocket launcher toting girl.

_Rumble, fall back! It's just you and Amumu left!_

_I can win this! It's that random girl, Jayce, and Heimerdinger lef_t! As Rumble thought to Kernal, the Piltover girl stowed the rocket launcher on her back and pulled out a minigun.

Suddenly Rumble didn't feel so confident in his chances.

The girl revved up the minigun and fired a barrage of bullets at Rumble, who was left exposed by the cover. He shook as Kernal's magic absorbed hundreds of bullets until Kernal cried out in his mind and he was shredded by hundreds of bullets.

When Rumble's body was reconstituted by Kernal and his mind switched back on, he was sitting inside Tristy back in his workshop. He hopped out, staggering as he landed less than gracefully on the floor.

"How did it go?" Flora asked.

Rumble turned and stared at her for a bit. Then he stormed towards the door.

"Rumble?"

"Next time...if you're going to change something...TELL ME!"


	6. Traction

**December 13, 18 CLE**

**Institute of War-Dining Hall**

"So it looks like the news got their hands on it," Rumble said, slapping the Demacian Sentinel down on the table. The headline read "Bandle City Demolished by Piltover Vandal".

Tristana rolled her eyes and groaned. "That bitch's name is Jinx? So melodramatic." She dug into her pancakes with fury. "I like how they didn't even mention that one of our summoners died mid match."

"Well, to be fair, they're just trying to sell papers," Poppy replied, eyes buried in her own copy of the Sentinel. "By the way, Tristana, I heard you were going to go to shooting practice today. Mind if I tag along? Otherwise I'd be just sitting in my office doing paperwork all day, and I'd rather have one of my assistants do that. Snowdown's coming, after all-let's have some fun!"

"I'd like to join in too, if you don't mind; just let me-" Rumble's pager cut him off mid sentence. He glanced at it; it read: CM 2 WRKSHP. -F

"Crap, I've really got to take this. Mind if I meet you guys down at the practice field later on?"

"Sure," Tristana said. "Maybe you should bring that robot of yours, take it for a ride?"

"Depends. Might need to oil her up a bit." Rumble stood from the table, leaving his toast uneaten, and walked up to the workshop. He absentmindedly pressed the brick on the wall and scanned his retinas, then walked through the revolving door to see a masked Flora sparking away at Tristy's feet, welder in hand.

"Hey, hey, HEY!" Rumble yelled from across the room. Flora shut down the welder. "What are you doing?"

"Remember the crampon mechanism I talked about at the interview? Yesterday I drew one up, and today I'm installing it."

"You can't just make changes without asking me!"

"Well, okay then," Flora sighed, turning away from Rumble. When she turned back to Rumble, she made a fake pleading face. "Rumble, can I PLEASE put my new traction system on your death machine?"

"Show me your drawing." Flora walked over to a table where she had a large sheet of parchment laid out.

"This is kind of like a horseshoe that goes on your robot's existing feet. We've got a horseshoe ring of metal spikes rigged up to a impact sensitive solenoid mechanism. When Tristy's foot hits the ground, the impact will trigger the solenoids, firing the spikes into the ground and locking the foot in place. Then, when you command the other leg to move, its solenoids will release and allow the foot to move while locking the foot on the ground in place until the other foot has locked its solenoids in."

"Won't this slow Tristy down? She's already slow enough as it is." Despite Rumble's outward trepidation, inside he wanted to grab a welder and join in. It was a pretty damn good mechanism for a twenty three year old.

"Yes, it will, but that's a small price to pay for not getting your robot knocked down. If it really bothers you, I added a remote controlled switch in the cockpit that allows you to manually disable the system, in case you'd rather go faster or if you ever decide to drive Tristy around indoors."

"Cool system," Rumble said. "How much more time do you need for the install?"

"I built the two additions to the feet separately yesterday, now I just need to weld them on. Should only take five more minutes."

"Good. After that, you're coming with me to the practice range. We're taking a day off to chill with some of the yordle champions. Should be fun."

"Alright." Flora lowered her mask and got back to work. Rumble walked into his office and took a sip of his potion. For some reason, ever since the match, he was doing better with his potion. His knee barely pained him at all anymore. He had considered asking Soraka to take a look at it, which didn't bother him because she wasn't technically human, but he didn't see any reason to journey to her Ionian grove when his knee was feeling better as it was.

Rumble sat down at the desk, shoving aside his sketch of a new Flamespitter which required parts from a rather shady contact of his in Bandle City. Instead, he started sketching out a new set of legs for Tristy. These ones would have to have plate armor, to deal with the explosive weapons that were becoming ever more common in the League. They'd have to have tougher joints too, in order to cope with the added strain of having to hold Tristy together against explosives while the feet locked themselves in the ground courtesy of Flora. He lost himself in his work, sketching frenetically with angular lines.

Flora stood silently behind him, watching. At last she said,"What you working on, Rumble?"

"Just drawing up a new pair of legs, in case I ever get to make them."

"I see you're drawing up a Flamespitter too. Tell me, you redesigning Tristy all the way?"

Rumble trusted Flora enough to tell her, "Yeah, I am, actually. A few weeks ago, the War Department offered me a ridiculous amount of gold to build them a military-grade mech for them so they could create an armored Megling division. Being the patriotic yordle I am, I agreed." Rumble frowned for a second. "By the way, I have to kill you now. Any last goodbyes?"

Flora laughed. "That's actually really cool! Is that why you've got me doing mechanical repairs? Keeping me away from the good stuff?"

"Yeah, actually. But I want to give your new traction device a try. If it works, consider yourself part of the redesign team. You'll still have to do repair stuff, though."

"Works for me."

"Good. Let's take the rest of the day off. Teemo, Tristana, and Poppy are hanging out at the shooting range and I'd figure we'd join them for a little bit of fun. We're bringing Tristy, by the way, so I can testdrive your new addition."

"Yay!"

"Hey, Rumble!" Tristana yelled from a bench. "You gonna show us that thing you were working on?" She was wearing khaki shorts and a tank top instead of her usual Megling gear.

"Yeah, I will once Kernal shows up. What're you guys doing?"

"We're messing around in the shooting range. Want to join in?" Tristana asked, twirling a pistol in her hands.

"What, you just doing target practice?"

"Well," Tristana said with an evil grin in her eye, "We were thinking of getting out the paintball pistols and playing a few rounds."

"I'm in for that, even if he's not." Flora chimed in.

"No, I'm playing too," Rumble said. "Who else is here?"

"Teemo, Poppy, and Ziggs." Tristana motioned to them to come over. "Me and Teemo versus all. We need the practice. 30 seconds to set up before the game starts. You guys up for it?"

"Really…" Rumble and Poppy muttered, having been on the wrong side of this matchup before.

"What's wrong?" Flora asked, hefting a paintball pistol from a crate. "Four on two. We've got the advantage, right?"

"Flora, you do know they're both Meglings, right?" Rumble said. Flora didn't look so optimistic anymore. "They're in the Special Operations wing of the Bandle City military. Now, granted, Tristana's a sharpshooter, not a front lines fighter, but I'm sure I don't need to tell you anything about Teemo's reputation. That guy's a legend in the military."

"Oh, come off it. We can handle them." And as they entered the shoothouse, a practice building built on the League site by the Piltover Sheriff's department, Rumble did feel a little better about their chances. He hefted a paintball shotgun and took cover behind a wall as the match started.

"What's the plan?" Poppy whispered, holding a pistol. "We going to go hunt for them or just stay here and wait for them to come to us?"

"Wait here," Rumble whispered back. "Flora, Ziggs, watch the side doors, would you?" Flora nodded and took cover behind a wall of her own, while Ziggs merely laughed and juggled his paint grenades. Those were bound to get messy.

A few minutes later, the sound of Tristana's boots came from a room down the hallway. Rumble grabbed everyone and crept up into the large open space, where Tristana was facing away from them. He carefully aimed down the sights of his weapon, hoping to pick her off.

Suddenly, Tristana spun around, a paint grenade in her hand. She lobbed it at the group before diving behind a fallen table. Rumble's team dove for cover themselves, escaping before the grenade splattered paint everywhere within 10 feet of where it landed.

"Open fire!" Rumble yelled, glancing over a chair and firing paint at Tristana. The paint from his shotgun splattered over the sideways table, but missed Tristana. Flora and Poppy chipped in with shots of their own, keeping the megling pinned down even if they couldn't hit her.

Tristana yelled, "Teemo! Alley-oop!" Worried, Rumble looked behind him to see Teemo running down the hallway Rumble had come from. He fired a splattering of shots from a pistol, landing a body shot on Flora but missing everything else, before he threw his gun in an arc over Rumble's team. Rumble raised his shotgun and fired a blast at Teemo that forced him into cover.

Tristana vaulted over the table, catching Teemo's pistol in her right hand. She fired two shots at Poppy and Ziggs, eliminating them. When she saw Rumble turning around, leveling his shotgun, she threw the gun back over the group, where Teemo caught it and fired four shots that soaked Rumble's favorite vest in paint.

"Haha!" Tristana laughed. "GG, guys. Just can't handle that teamwork, huh."

"Why didn't you guys both have guns?" Rumble asked, somewhat annoyed that the pair of Meglings had won, even though he had expected it.

"We don't need two guns to beat you guys."

"Well, thanks!" Poppy laughed. "That sure made us feel good about fighting you two."

"Hey, guys, Kernal's here," Rumble cut in. "Come outside so we can give this new thing a test drive."

"Kernal, you don't need to move Tristy anywhere. Just put your magic around her so she doesn't get blown to smithereens, okay?"

"Got it...I think." Kernal concentrated, forming a familiar barrier of summoning magic around Tristy.

"Now. Flora, get in the cockpit."

"What? Me?" Flora yelped.

"Yes, you. It's your system, so you're driving."

"WHAT? You finally let her do something other than repairs?" Ziggs asked.

"Yeah, she had a good idea for the feet." Flora climbed up the ladder on the front of Tristy and belted herself in in the cockpit. She pushed on the joysticks, and Tristy accelerated forwards.

"Tristana, you have your cannon with you?" Rumble asked.

"Not now," Tristana said. "Left it in my room because I don't have any matches today."

"Ziggs, explosives?"

"Always." Ziggs pulled out a rather large block of hexplosive and planted it on the ground. Everyone backed up behind a wall.

"Flora! Walk straight forwards. You'll know when to stop."

Flora piloted Tristy straight ahead until the robot's left foot landed just behind the hexplosive. With a yell, Ziggs detonated the charge. The explosion rocked the practice field.

Rumble walked out. Tristy was still standing. Flora tumbled out of the cockpit, sweating.

"It works," she said simply.

_Unfortunately, I didn't make it anywhere near the 50,000 word goal for NaNoWriMo due to unexpected commitments and writer's block. However, I still plan to finish this story, even though it might take a while._

_Just a fun little chapter today. More serious stuff coming soon._


	7. Snowdown, Part 1

**A few days later**

**Institute of War**

**Rumble's Apartment**

Someone was pounding on Rumble's door.

"Rumble? Rumble! How long are you going to take in there?"

Rumble sighed as he combed his fur into a somewhat presentable shape. He had put on a suit for the Snowdown ball, and after five minutes of wearing it he already hated it.

"Rumble! Everyone else is waiting for you for the strategy talk. It won't take long."

"One second!" Rumble yelled.

"You said that five minutes ago!" yelled the feminine voice on the other side of the door.

"Fine, I'm coming out." Rumble hurled the comb into the sink and walked out of the bathroom, stepping straight into his dress shoes without missing a beat. Outside, Tristana waited, wearing a plain black collared shirt and dress pants.

"Not going to the dance tonight?"

"Oh, I'm going. Just never been one to dress to impress."

"Who're you going with?" Rumble asked as the pair set off for Poppy's office, which had traditionally been used by Bandle City's champions to talk strategy.

"I'm going with Teemo, just like I do every year."

Rumble laughed. "When are you two gonna make that thing official?"

"You know, it's entirely platonic. I'm just looking out for him is all."

"Sure you are," Rumble said. "That explains why you two are always together. always sharing drinks, always sneaking off for a romantic candlelit dinner back in Bandle while everyone else is sleeping over at the League."

"You know, Teemo's been essentially defending Bandle City's borders solo for the last ten years." Rumble nodded-the light skinned, almost human looking yordle was a legend in the Bandle City military. "He spends all that time out in the wilderness alone, even though the threat from other nations is much lower now because of the League. If he didn't have someone to come back to, he'd probably lose his mind out there. You know how it is."

"I know how it is," Rumble replied grumpily. It was true. Yordles were notoriously social animals and needed a lot of social contact in order to maintain their sanity. Teemo had spent so much time defending Bandle City that he sometimes seemed a little unhinged when Rumble was around. "What strategy do you think Poppy is gonna have to unveil?" he said, changing the subject.

"Oh, I don't know. We'll probably just do something standard."

"Well, she told me it was something big," Rumble said. "Something unusual." The pair swung open the door to Poppy's office, where several other Bandle City champions were crowded around the table looking up at a BlitzNet screen.

"Alright, everyone, settle down," Poppy yelled from the back of the room, waving the remote in the air. The group quieted down. "Rumble, you're late. What took so long, Tristy?"

"I have no idea," the Megling said back. "What's the plan for tomorrow?"

"Well, if everyone would just SHUT UP I could get on with it!" Everyone in the group slowly quieted down. Suddenly, just when Teemo's last whispers to Tristana vanished, Rumble started laughing. "What's so funny?"

"It's kind of a turn on when you yell like that." Rumble cracked up in his seat while everyone else glanced at Rumble, then glanced at Poppy, and then began laughing along with him.

"SHUT UP!" Poppy roared, slamming her hammer into the table and cracking the wood. "I know everyone's ready to party tonight. This strategy talk will take 10 minutes and then you can all go to the dance, get drunk, and get laid. Possibly not in that order."

"Well, get on with it then!" Tristana snapped.

"So, here's our strategy," Poppy began. "Last time we played Piltover was last week. My summoner rather inconveniently chose the middle of that match to kick the bucket, so I got replaced by Rumble. In the last fight, the new girl-her name's Jinx, right?-absolutely destroyed us. Just took us apart with that heavy ordinance of hers."

"So what the hell is our plan?" Rumble asked. "You gonna spend the whole time talking about last week or-" Poppy smashed her hammer on the table again.

"I was just getting to our plan. In Piltover's practice matches, which I've been watching from my office when the paperwork is slow, they've been practicing a composition with Jinx, Blitzcrank, Vi, Caitlyn, and Jayce. They plan to shoot stuff at us from really far away and then hit us when we're weak. What we're going to do is force them to fight when they're not ready. We'll have Tristana, Teemo, and Lulu hold towers while we flank them with Rumble and Amumu, and then we'll catch them by surprise and melt down their snipers."

"What about the early game?" Teemo asked.

"I was just getting to that. We're going to mix things up a little. I want to send Teemo and Lulu bottom lane, Tristana top lane, Rumble mid, and Amumu jungle."

"You want to send me mid against Caitlyn? What's going on there?" Rumble demanded.

"Her bullets will just bounce straight off your robot's shell. Tristana's good for top because she can disengage from Jayce well. Teemo bot lane because I think his guerilla tactics will be more effective against Jinx then Caitlyn. Lulu and Amumu are our usual support and jungle picks. Everyone good with what we're doing?" Several muttered "yeah"s came from the group of yordle champions. "Okay then, we're done here. Enjoy the party."

Rumble was the first one out of the door. Outside Poppy's office, he saw Flora waiting in a yordle-sized red cocktail dress. "What're you doing here? This was a champion only strategy talk."

"I'm going to the dance with Teemo," Flora replied. "Just waiting for him to come out."

"Really? Teemo? You're getting around pretty quickly, Flora."

Flora said nothing as she latched on to Teemo's arm as he left the room. The pair were gone in a flash. A few seconds later, Tristana walked out of the room.

"Teemo said he had a date," she said simply, looking upset.

"And you said you guys were just friends," Rumble quipped. "I just saw my assistant running off with him."

"So you didn't hire that chick just to take her to bed?" Poppy said as she walked out of the room.

"Sometimes I think she took the job just so she could get in bed with more interesting people," Rumble replied. "You going single too, Poppy?"

"Not anymore, it looks like. I'll hang out with you two if you're-"

"We're not together," Rumble and Tristana said at the same time. Poppy laughed.

"Well, I have to go change before the dance," Poppy said. "Tristana, how about you come with me, and Rumble can do whatever he does when he has to kill five minutes."

"Sounds good," Rumble said, smiling inwardly at how Poppy set him up with enough time to talk to his contact. He had arranged for his contact to be given admission to the exclusive Summoners' Ball last week so that they could discuss some business with each other. Poppy must have found out through the War Department representative he had asked about it.

Rumble found his man in the corner of the mess hall, which was covered with festive decorations for the Snowdown Season. Before he could even grab himself a drink, Rumble's contact, an import-export guy named Floyd, waved him over.

"Hey, Rumble, I just wanted to say thanks for getting me a ticket to this thing," Rumble's black market contact said, sipping at his champaigne.

"Enough of that." Rumble grabbed his contact, set his drink down on a table, and steered him into a side hallway that connected to the mess hall. He looked up and down to make sure it was clear before he started talking. "Business first, then you can go drink yourself into a coma for all I care."

"You brought me here for a business meeting?"

"Yeah, I did. I'm looking for something that the League won't give me, and thanks to the War Department I have the money to buy it."

"What's this 'something'? Because I have to tell you, I don't do that kind of thing. I'm a legitimate merchant now."

Rumble laughed out loud. "Floyd, back when we were in college I bought so much stuff from you. So did every single other person at the college. And you're telling me that you don't sell stuff anymore? You'd be insane to give up that kind of market. What I'm buying isn't even illegal."

"What can I tell ya, Rumble? Once the League was created, they started watching everyone's trade. I can't sell ya anything because even if you bought it there'd be no way for me to get it to ya through the League's mail screeners."

"You let me worry about that." Rumble replied. "Look, I'm just doing a little upgrade on Tristy. I already know what I need. It'll take you 10 seconds to tell me if you have what I need."

"Alright, alright, I'll see if I have it." Floyd grumbled. "But only because it's you, man, alright? And I don't want you calling me no more after this. You're a smart guy, you whip up the stuff you need in the future, yeah?"

"Yeah, sure. Anyways, what I want is 50 pounds of Tungsten-Hexchrome alloy."

Floyd laughed. "Thanks for the champaigne at least. Sorry you spent all those favors getting me up here, but I can't help you."

"Why can't you help me out?"

Floyd laughed again. "Rumble, I don't think fifty pounds of Tungsten Hexchrome alloy has ever existed in one place at one time. I may still have all my black market contacts, but I can't do magic."

"Fine. I can make do with thirty. Send me a letter when you find out if you can get it or not. Oh, and don't try to send me fake stuff. The first thing I'm doing with the stuff is throwing it in a blast furnace and seeing how long it takes to start melting."

"Gotcha, Rumble. I'll send some letters, talk to some people, see what I can find. But no guarantees."

"No guarantees. Got it. Now go. Drink yourself silly."


End file.
